Chris McDougall was on a local radio program last week discussing barefoot running. He made an interesting suggestion that maybe people getting into barefoot running should forgo VFFs, et al. and go fully barefoot when they start out. His reasoning was that minimalist shoes make it easy to do too much too soon. It's hard to overdo things fully barefoot because the soles of your feet are going to hurt long before you strain a calf or something. Once you can run 2-3 miles fully barefoot on pavement, then you can get some minimalist shoes and get after it.